Fans flocking south to huddle with adopted Seahawks

Iain MacIntyre, Sun columnist, Vancouver Sun12.23.2012

Seattle Seahawks fans celebrate a play against the San Francisco 49ers Sunday, Dec. 23, 2012, in Seattle.John Froschauer
/ AP

Running back Marshawn Lynch of the Seattle Seahawks, one of the exciting players this National Football League season, rushes toward the end zone on Dec. 9 against the Arizona Cardinals at CenturyLink Field in Seattle. Receiver Sidney Rice (left) applauds his teammate's effort. The Seahawks won the game 58-0.Otto Greule Jr.
/ Getty Images Files

It would be better to buy a cow than cross the border for cheap milk on Sunday. Far easier to get to Abbotsford than Blaine for less expensive gasoline.

It would be better to be almost anywhere other than a Metro Vancouver border crossing Sunday morning because lining up with the final surge of Christmas shoppers will be as many as 7,000 Canadians swarming south to scream their lungs out for the Seattle Seahawks.

If Canadians had been this eager to push southward 170 years ago in support of their convictions, the boundary of British Columbia would probably still stretch to the mouth of the Columbia River instead of the 49th parallel, where it was pushed by expansionist U.S. President James Polk when neither Britain nor America had the appetite to wage war over the Pacific Northwest.

Sorry about the history lesson. But there’s a lesson here for the Vancouver Canucks, too.

If the National Hockey League isn’t going to play, not every sports fan here is locking himself in the bedroom and writing lonely odes to the Canucks. Apparently, a lot of them like the National Football League.

And this season, especially, there is a lot to like about the Seahawks.

“We’re definitely Vancouver’s team,” Omar Mawjee, the North Vancouverite who is the Seahawks’ regional marketing director, said this week. “But after our game in Toronto, I think we’re Canada’s team, too. Canada is kind of a perfect storm for us.”

The Seahawks’ 50-17 win against the Buffalo Bills last weekend in Toronto boosted Seattle’s record to 9-5 and set up this Sunday’s divisional showdown against the first-place San Francisco 49ers.

The Seahawks are the first NFL team since 1950 to reach 50 points in consecutive games. They have won five of their last six.

The roster is loaded with young, exciting players, only a couple younger and none more exciting than rookie quarterback sensation Russell Wilson. Battering-ram running back Marshawn Lynch is one of the best players in the NFL.

Seahawks’ head coach Pete Carroll, famously successful at the University of Southern California, has a relentless enthusiasm that can be irritating when the team loses but is infectious at the moment.

Now, throw in the absence of the NHL — the top game in town in each of its Canadian markets — and growing dissatisfaction from a lot of affluent hockey fans, and you’ve got the perfect conditions for the Seahawks to deepen their footprint on Vancouver.

The team has had fans here since Seattle entered the NFL in 1976.

Some Canadians simply prefer the American version of football, but the attraction of the Seahawks has always had much to do with the electric, big-league atmosphere of NFL games, each one like a festival on the calendar compared to hockey’s 82-game slog.

The Seahawks play in one of the best and loudest stadiums in football, CenturyLink Field, and have been sold out every game since their 2005 season when Seattle made its only Super Bowl appearance.

But there is a crackling buzz around this Seahawk team because of its youth and trajectory and coach and quarterback.

“Seattle is always a top-15 team in popularity when the NFL does its surveys (of the U.S.),” Mawjee said. “But in Canada, we’re in the top five. So I always joke to my colleagues that we’re more popular in Canada than we are at home.”

The NFL team has maintained an office in the Lower Mainland since 2004, when it was opened by former Seahawk chief executive officer Tod Leiweke, who had been a senior executive with the Canucks. The Seahawks dedicate one game a year as “Canada Day,” when O Canada is sung before kickoff. Three other times per season the team runs “Canadian Embassy” tailgate parties for fans.

Mawjee, who recently moved to Seattle, also organizes an annual Seahawk summer visit to Vancouver that includes a media blitz, a football skills camp run in partnership with the B.C. Lions, and fan party.

The Seahawks have a dozen corporate sponsors in Metro Vancouver that run ticket contests and promotions during the season.

On any given Sunday, about 10 per cent of the 67,000 fans at CenturyLink Field are from Canada. But Mawjee said this figure is from only season-ticket and group sales the Seahawks can track. Many other Canadian fans simply buy tickets from brokers.

“People are going to spend their (ticket) money elsewhere, and for a 2½-hour drive down the I-5, it’s a pretty good deal. Apples to apples, bang for the buck, the NFL experience is really good. Going over the border, you always see a lot of Seahawks jerseys and flags.”

Mahony is part of the family that operates Mahony and Sons pubs downtown and at UBC. For Sunday’s big game, he is taking a group of 15 to Seattle in a minibus.

Surrey insurance adjuster Andrew Merritt spends about $6,000 a year on Seahawk club seats for he and his business partner. Merritt also owns Canuck season tickets.

“I think Canadian fans are proud to be involved,” he said. “The fact the Canucks aren’t playing is probably a boost to the Seahawks. I think the numbers they’re talking about are 5,000 to 7,000 ticket holders, and I can see that getting to 10,000.”

Merritt has a Nexus Pass that allows him to drive across the border in the express lane. Like many fans, Merritt and Mahony plan to get to the game hours early, allowing time to hit the bars and restaurants near the stadium.

“We call it Vancouver’s adopted team,” Mawjee said. “We’ve pretty much sold out of Russell Wilson jerseys around the Lower Mainland.

“If we look at all the metrics, Vancouver is trending extremely well. And it’s such an exciting team with a young nucleus, I don’t think we’re going to be one-and-done. I’m pretty optimistic that people, once they go down for a game, they’re going to go back.”

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Fans flocking south to huddle with adopted Seahawks

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